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Euro Quality Lambs are live with Emydex Kill Line & Payments System

SHROPSHIRE-UK:
Euro Quality Lambs Ltd (EQL) is a lamb and sheep abattoir capable of processing 12,500 carcasses a week with onsite boning and further processing facilities. The majority of EQL production is sold in carcass form, both to the UK and throughout Europe.

EQL is one of the largest specialised and dedicated Halal meat processors in the UK.

In 2014 EQL recognized that their ageing production management system was in need of updating in order to satisfy both customer and legislative quality, traceability and veterinary requirements. After a detailed review of market suppliers of meat processing software in both the UK and Ireland, Emydex Technology were chosen to supply a new Lamb kill line system to EQL.

Installed over a number of separate project phases, the Emydex software installed was configured specifically for EQL, by tailoring the Emydex standard Lamb kill line system to deliver functionality from livestock procurement right through to carcass & box dispatch.

Hardware costs were kept to a minimum by reusing the existing scales, printers and barcode scanners. The only new hardware installed (supplied by Emydex industrial hardware partner MWS Ltd) being three new industrial touch-screen computer terminals. A single OCM was supplied to enable labelling of boxes (both offal and primals).

Rizvan Khalid (Senior Director) of Euro Quality Lambs commented “having met the Emydex team and seen all of the product development, project delivery and customer support teams based in Dublin, we felt confident that we could work with Emydex. Since then our project has been implemented in a timely manner, and has met and in some cases surpassed our expectations.” Khalid added “One differentiator with Emydex over the other factory floor systems we evaluated was the ability and ease with which the Emydex system can be modified and configured to work in line with our existing EQL business processes. We had many new ideas that we wanted to incorporate into our new system. The flexibility inherent in Emydex means everything is possible”

Commenting on the installation, David McMahon CEO with Emydex in Dublin said “Rizvan and the management team in EQL had a very clear vision of their system requirements from the outset of the project, that was the automated collection of production data from factory door-to-door, enabling accurate reporting on production yields, quality and traceability information in real-time.”
For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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Emydex live in MeatCo, Namibia

WINDHOEK – NAMIBIA:
Emydex today announce that their factory floor Data Capture, Production Reporting and Traceability system is now live and operational in MeatCo (Namibia)’s main beef processing plant in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.

The beef primal deboning system in Windhoek is the first of an eight phase project that will see Emydex systems rolled out across MeatCo’s six beef processing operations in four separate locations in Namibia, as well as integrating Emydex to the Table Bay Cold Store in South Africa.

The two year, Euro 300k contract includes system rollout to Meatco’s two export approved slaughter and boning plants in Windhoek and Okahandja. Both plants are capable of slaughtering up to 1500cattle per day. The naturally grass fed Beef for which Namibia is famous is supplemented with Beef from Meatco’s own feed lot at Okapuka.

The Meat Corporation of Namibia (‘MeatCo’) also operate two further non-export abattoirs owned by the Namibian government but managed by Meatco, in Katima and Oshakati, which will both see Emydex installed. Finally a Wholesale beef processing plant and a cannery (both on the Windhoek site) will operate Emydex’s production management system.

Having pre-configured MeatCo’s customer specific business requirements in Dublin during February, Emydex staff were onsite in Windhoek during the Months of March and April, further configuring and customising the Emydex system to comply with the local market requirements of Meatco’s main export plant.

Phase one of the Windhoek project covered the carcass chills, carcass dispatch, boning hall, primal and carton packing, finished product stock, carton dispatch and integration to Meatco’s Sage X3 ERP system. Emydex are currently working on the Meatco Wholesale plant in Windhoek, soon to be followed by the Cannery and finally the Windhoek Beef slaughter line.

The company are targeting September 2014 as a likely roll out date for Windhoek system into Meatco’s second export plant in Okahandja.Due to the inherent flexibility and usability of the Emydex system Meatco are planning to roll out the Emydex system in the Oshakati and Katima abattoirs themselves,with remote support from Emydex as needed.

Commenting on the first phase of the Emydex system roll-out, AndriesTaljaardt,Meatco’s Windhoek Plant Manager said

“While slaughter continues uninterrupted, system upgrades are currently being effected at our Windhoek abattoir to improve the effectiveness of operations and maximise output in order to cater to growing customer demands.

Because of these demands, and the fact that preferences and specifications are continuously changing, we have to move into the direction which the market is moving. We have installed a new Production Management Software System (Emdyex) and layout in our Windhoek abattoir deboning department, which allows for a lot of value addition to our products. The Emydex system controls the volumes and all the information on the deboning floor and is responsible for the production recons and the labelling of products.

With the new layout, we have introduced an additional vacuum line and an additional frozen line. With that, we can now put up to 420 carcasses through deboning per day within normal working hours. For May, we are looking to put more than 6600 carcasses through deboning. Round about June, once the system is fully implemented, the number of carcasses we want to put through deboning is about 7000.”

In addition Andries said “We chose Emydex given it is a highly technological system that is used in many international abattoirs that adhere to European Union standards. Meatco is a pioneer in quality standards compliance in Namibia and is one of the first companies to achieve certification for international standards like ISO 9001 and HACCP.”

Commenting on the Emydex system roll-out, Nico Weck, Group Chief Financial Officer at the MeatCo group said “since implementing Emydex’s shop floor barcode labelling and scanning system at our Windhoek primal deboning operations, our managers now have instant access to accurate reporting on our Yields, Stocks and Traceability”.

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Emydex Livestock Payment System

All three flavours of the Emydex multi-species livestock payments system are now live and running in abattoirs spread across Ireland and the UK.

Emydex’s Beef payments system is live in Liffey Meat’s plant in Ballinasloe, as well as Euro Farm Foods in Ireland. The Lamb payments system is live in Scotlamb (Vivers) in Scotland and the Emydex Pig payments system in Dawn Pork and Bacon in Ireland. Since being installed at these plants the system is being considered by a number of plants in the UK and Ireland, and even further afield in mainland Europe and Africa via our re-seller network.

Integration with other Emydex Kill Line Components

The payments system integrates with Emydex’s livestock booking component in order to ensure that any special prices applied at the time of booking are used for the payments. If no special prices are used then the system defaults to a base price per species/category.

When integrated to the payments system the booking component is able to retrieve the previous historical prices paid to a producer and the previous quality of animals received. This is for assistance when special prices need to be negotiated.

Whilst the main kill data is read from the Emydex carcass classification component, the payment system is in effect a stand-alone module, and whilst integration with other Emydex kill line components offers advantages, they are not compulsory. The Emydex payments system is capable of integration with any supplier’s kill line systems.

Settlement Schemes

The payment system itself is highly configurable. The method of calculating the amount to be paid for each carcass is called a ‘settlement schedule’. Whilst it would be simplest to administer if there was a single settlement schedule for all producers, this is often not possible. The system therefore allows any number of settlement schemes to be created and allocated against producers/agents.

Each settlement scheme can be made up of any number of elements. All schemes will start with a default base price/kg for each category of livestock being killed. In its simplest form this price is used to calculate the initial value of the carcass. Base prices can be over-written with prices agreed at time of booking, and/or at time of payment.

There are then a set of adjustment tables that are applied sequentially to the carcass to arrive at the final purchase price. Whilst these adjustments are normally always deductions, the Emydex system will allow bonuses to be paid for specific conditions.

Typical Adjustment tables would be:

Weight range table – with flat rate value paid above specific weights
Eurograde table – with adjustments based upon a grid of confirmation and fat class
Fault table – with adjustments based upon specific fault conditions
Quality table – with adjustments based upon the producers quality status

The Emydex system enables the user to set up as many adjustment tables as required using any parameter either captured in the system or recalled from the database.

The system has now calculated the individual value of each animal and the gross value of the lot. There are now a set of deductions that need to be applied to the gross value.

Again these deductions are created by the user. A specific set of deductions is defined for each settlement scheme.

Typical deductions (which can be specified as per kg or per head) include Haulage, Industry Levies, Veterinary Levies and Clipping Charges.

Pricing Screen:

Emydex Payments screen

Report Printing

Dependent upon the species/producer, there may be a requirement for the remittance advice note to show individual animals or grouped animals (e.g. by weight range or grade range). The system can be set to print either or both.

If the user requires it, the remittance advice note and cheque can be incorporated into the same document.

Reports are also available for any deductions specified.

Financial Integration

The Emydex payment system has the functionality to be operated in two modes.

Financial System Prints Cheques

In the first mode Emydex simply prints remittance advice notes and a list of all individual lot payments. This list is also available as a file for export into the user’s financial system for invoicing.

In the case of deductions, an invoice is normally received from the service provider, the Emydex deductions reports can be used to cross check the invoice amounts.

Emydex Prints Cheques

In this scenario the cheque is printed by the Emydex system (either attached to remittance advice note or on separate stationary). The Emydex system will also then print invoice lists with cheque numbers. This list is also available as a file for export into the user’s financial system.

Summary

The Emydex Livestock Payments System eliminates calculation errors by integrating the payment calculation system with the livestock classification system. It is a real time system that enables the payment calculation to be made as soon as a lot has been processed, significantly improving the efficiency of the payments office.

Historical data analysis enables processors detailed views of producer’s deliveries to the plant, such information can be shared with producers to the benefit of both parties.

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Liffey Meats opt for Emydex Kill line system

Liffey Meats Branding

In November 2011, Liffey meats started a new chapter in the history of Ballinasloe by processing the first cattle in their new state of the art meat factory in the town. This Emydex Beef kill line system currently incorporates Lairage booking, Sequencing and Grading terminals as well an offal packing station, Carcass dispatch station and a Beef Payments system with links to Liffey Meats flagship processing plant in Ballyjamesduff. The Mallon family who own and operate Liffey Meats, have three state of the art processing plants located in Cavan and Carlow and Galway Ireland. An Emydex implementation team deployed their kill line system from green-light to go-live within 10 days starting from scratch.

Commenting on the roll-out, Derek McDermott, Financial Controller with the Liffey Meats group said “I was impressed to see how quickly the Emdyex team were able to deploy their kill line traceability system into our new slaughter plant in Ballinasloe without having previous worked with the Liffey Meat’s group. Their kill line and payments systems went live without incident, and have been functioning stably ever since. We initially opted to install Emydex’s standard beef kill line system, but soon after go-live realised there were many business specific reports as well as specific system customisations required to match our existing business processes. Again the Emydex team were able to code these requirements up for us without hassle in a short space of time. It’s early days for Liffey Meats as an Emydex customer, but so far, so good. Their support structures are solid also.”

David McMahon, Emydex CEO said “it’s rewarding to see that after 5 years of product design and development, Emydex today have a full suite of robust and stable software systems that can be installed into different working environments with the minimum of effort and fuss. Well done to all those who worked on the Ballinasloe rollout Algis, Carl and especially to Daniel, our technical delivery manager for going the extra mile.”

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Emydex Animal Payment System showcased at MeatUp UK

Over two days in June Emydex showcased a number of their new software products to the Meat processing trade at the UK’s new MeatUp Expo, which took place at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire over the 21st & 22nd June 2011.

Animal Payment

On display was Emydex’s latest release of their new multi-species Animal Settlement and Payments system, a fully integrated add-on to the Emydex Beef, lamb and Pork Kill line systems. The latest version of Beef Animal payments went live earlier in June at Emydex’s new customer Euro Farm Foods based in Duleek, Ireland.

Euro Farm foods replaced their existing beef kill line system with the Emydex beef kill line system incorporating Beef Lairage bookings, real-time links to the Department of Agriculture’s AIMs system for tracking cattle movements, real-time links to Bord Bia’s Beef Quality Assurance scheme via web services for tracking Supplier’s quality assurance status, Beef Ear-tag station, Grading & Weighing station, Offal packing, Carcass dispatch and Beef payment.

Emydex at MeatUp Uk 2011
Emydex at MeatUp Uk 2011
Emydex at MeatUp Uk 2011

The Animal payment module is capable of producing remittance advice notes, printing supplier cheques and managing associated costs involved with the abattoir. It allows for different payment schemas to be associated with individual suppliers or supplier groups. In addition to supplier payment the system also supports payment to clippers, hauliers and agents on an aggregated basis over time. Ad-hoc and supplementary payments are also supported. In addition to providing Multi-currency functionality, the system tracks historical pricing and exchange rates, and has a facility to define future pricing based on valid from dates. Beef payments in Ireland are automatically generated based on the 15 point Quality Payment grid.

The plan is to now roll-out a Lamb Animal Payment system in partnership with another new Emydex customer based in Scotland with whom Emydex will work with to configure their new multi-species payment system specifically for Lamb payments. “There are obviously differences between beef and lamb payments but these can be all handled by the configuration capabilities within the system, rather than requiring any new development effort” said Pete Kettell, Emydex’s UK Sales manager.

“We are also are also planning to roll-out our animal payment system for Pork payments either in conjunction with some of our existing pork processing customers operating a pork kill line or a new pork processing customer”, said David McMahon, CEO of Emydex.

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Emydex Beef Kill Line goes live in Euro Farm Foods.

Euro Farm Foods
Euro Farm Foods operate a beef slaughter plant at Cooksgrove, near Duleek in Co. Meath. The present business is unrecognisable from the small local abattoir taken over in 2001 by Michael & Agnes Fox. Continuous investment in infrastructure and personnel has helped the business establish and succeed in a demanding customer driven market.

With a view to further development of the business, in late 2010 Euro Farm Foods decided to upgrade from their previous factory software system to Emydex’s Kill line and Carcass Management system. After a period of design, installation and implementation, the go-live was complete in June 2011.

The Emydex lairage system in Euro Farm Foods links to both the AIMs and Bord Bia’s Quality Assurance systems in real-time, retrieving and verifying animal details, as well as farm quality assured status. Their upgraded kill line system includes an ear-tag sequencer, Grading/Weighing Stations, as well as Carcass Dispatch and Offal Packing terminals. Euro Farm Foods now also operate Emydex’s multi-currency Cattle payments system for animal settlements and cheque/remittance printing. The payments module also provides Euro Farm with the functionality to interface with their financial software package.

Commenting on the Emydex project, Ciaran Boyle, Financial Controller with Euro Farm Foods said; “Any decision to switch management information software is difficult due to a multitude of factors involved. After researching the factory software options which would best fit our business, we were impressed by the product and the people that are Emydex. It was reassuring to discuss our needs with people who knew and understood our business. This worked particularly well during the development of the cattle payments module. Difficulties encountered during the implementation process were not allowed become problems with agreed solutions delivered. Users have the benefits of improved accurate and reliable business reporting, stock controls, traceability and quality information. The support tools and staff also deserve a mention. Their assistance has been of particular help to our business.”

David McMahon, Emydex CEO added ‘as Euro Farm Foods are a single plant customers it was crucial Emydex provided Euro Farms with a cut-over to Emydex with as little disruption to production as possible. We initially implemented our Carcass dispatch module on an offal packing and carcass dispatch terminals, while interfacing back to their existing kill line system to extract and report on kill line activity. Once we were happy offal packing and carcass dispatch were all working fine, and the reports were correct we swapped out their existing kill line and payments systems with Emydex and switched over to Emydex entirely.
For more information on the Emydex system click here or contact Emydex on +353 1 8855990

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